The Goat Bazaar

Tomorrow I leave on another great adventure with 16 other staff to Thailand for a teaching conference and vacation. But I just realized that I never wrapped up the Great Indian Adventure Story from Christmas. The last day that we were in Delhi, Caleb and I headed to Old Delhi on a two-fold mission: 1) Buy a harmonia (if you don't know what it is, it's like a table accordian) 2) Eat dinner at Karim's restaurant which had been recommended by two people in K-town.

We got an autorickshaw from the hotel and headed to Old Delhi. The driver immediately let us know that he could not take us "into" Old Delhi, but he would let us out next to the entrance. We soon found ourselves in a sea of buses, trucks, taxis, autorickshaws, bike rickshaws, bikes, people on foot, camels, and an extremely large number of goats of all varieties. I'm fairly used to goats. They eat the trash on the streets here, and we have a couple of diffrerent varieties, but these were even more diverse. Also, we found it fascinating to see how they were all decorated with bows, paint, ribbons, etc.

Getting Close to Old Delhi

The Mutant Giant Goats

We got out on foot and set off to find Karim's, but soon discovered that we were about a half a mile away. We were like fish swimming upstream, except our current was not water, but was men and goats. It was a bit humorous, actually. At one point Caleb was about 3 steps in front of me and had to jump over a goat that was blocking the way. As I was walking up to the goat, all I could think was , "As soon as I jump, the thing is going to get up and start moving and I'll either be carried along with it or fall to the ground and be trampled by the other goats." So what did I do? I jumped. I'm sure I was quite the afternoon entertainment for the nationals who had brought their goats to the big city. "Look at the crazy western lady hurdling goats!" Caleb actually used the digital camera to video me jumping over the goat, so remind me this summer, and I'll show it to you.

Anyway, the evening ended with a great dinner at Karim's, and we were able to go back the next day and get the harmonia. I guess I need to post a picture of that, too. I think that my Uncle Jack would be quite interesting in it! (He loves a good accordian.)
Streets of Old Delhi